


Gathering

by thinlizzy2



Category: This Tornado Loves You - Neko Case (Song)
Genre: Dark, Disturbing Themes, Other, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-26
Updated: 2016-05-26
Packaged: 2018-07-10 07:47:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6974131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thinlizzy2/pseuds/thinlizzy2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even indoors, even locked up, even six feet under, the storms find their ways to get in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gathering

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jouissant](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jouissant/gifts).



You want me. 

Even after everything we burned down together, even after everything I did, you want me. You must, still. I hear the wind howling out your desire with a desperation that reminds me of a gasping breath, the fierce and illogical instinct to seize both life and love. But stronger. Realer. Better. Because we know, you and I, that a breath can be stopped. Even in a healthy adult, in their prime, that heady rush of air can be drowned or choked out and sliced away. There are ways. There are so many ways. 

But not a wind. They build walls out of stone and plaster, wood and cement and so many useless things. But wind blows right through them, petty obstacles between a force of nature and its desires. You and your desire. You and me. 

I am buried deep now. I believe I am underground; they store me here like I am already dead, like they have already passed the current through me and watched my meat flop around and spark and smoke. 

What do you think that will smell like? Will it be like any other cooking meat? Will my mouth have time to water? I still remember cooking breakfast for you, the sound of bacon crackling, the hot oil droplets leaping up to burn my wrists. The crispy, delicious fattiness. I've put on weight since I got in here - lots of stodgy food and no real exercise. When they do me, what do you think it will taste like? 

What did it taste like for you? Was it metallic? I bet it was.

I'm sorry. I got distracted. That happens these days, far more than it used to. You remember how rarely I used to get distracted, back then. You used to admire my focus, my resolve. The way I set my sights on a goal and pursued it to the very end, leaving no stone unturned or fold untucked. 

It's ironic, really. I'd laugh. But I don't remember how. And I got distracted again. 

Yes, I am underground, or something as good as. I have no window, but I can still feel your longing ripping through the air, flinging away birds and buildings. Somehow, you get inside. Same as I did. My keepers come in with shirts translucent from the rain, their hair in wild shapes and I know you did this. You did this to show me your desires in the only way you still can. And I hear your cries, not with my ears, but in the only way that I can. I hear you cry with all the rest of me. 

Thank you, darling. It still means the world to me. You crying. 

I hear the uniforms talk in bored tones about what a strange fall it's been. Fierce dry winds fit to rip your skin off on Tuesday, hailstones the size of golf balls on Thursday. _It's climate change_ , they say, desperate for something to talk about besides the stares of the condemned and the damned drilling holes in their brainstems. _It's El Nino_. 

But I know better. I remember the hot spray of your blood in the moments after your throat was slashed, the chunky sections of your spine that they found washed up on the muddy shore. I know it's you, just like it always is. 

Wanting me, just like you always did. 

_**Always do.** _

_**FuckshitpissdamnfuckshitDO!!!**_

Sometimes, one shift is late, delayed because of the weather. The others grumble and grouse, complaining that their already long commutes and going to be delayed and worse besides. They can't just leave me here, they know my remarkable capacity for shedding blood and they are afraid that with you gone I might turn my skills on myself. I drink up their petty little frustrations like it's the red wine you used to pour for me. Like it's the inside of you. Dark, delicious stains on my teeth and tongue, at the beginning and at the end. You remember. Their annoyances are your new tribute to me, and the fact that only I can enjoy them make them even more. 

I always liked the you better than the wine, for the same reason. 

Can I tell you a secret? 

I can picture you smiling indulgently when I ask that. In the beginning, you liked it when I played the little kid, didn't you. School uniforms, thumb-sucking, that little baby voice. _Sure, you would say,_ stroking the side of my neck. _Tell me your secret, baby._

I can picture you rolling your eyes when I ask that. You did that a lot, after you got tired of all the games, when all you wanted to do was get to work, to your parents' house for dinner, to sleep, to the bed of whatever pissing swamprat you were fucking behind my back. And I'd wish, so much, that I could call up a storm to keep you close and awake and inside of me. That we could just hide away from all the world inside the eye of the storm, and I could show you all the new games that your baby was learning to play. 

Guess I got my wish a little too late, huh? Or maybe just out of order. 

Is that funny. Would you tell me if that was funny? 

Sorry. Still a bit distractable tonight, I guess. It's that kind of evening. If it's evening at all. 

My secret is this: 

_**Sometimes I wonder if you're really storming for me. Or if the wind and rain and sleet and hail that goes everywhere is just your stinking cheating way of fucking everything and every one that you didn't live long enough to screw before I ripped your beautiful, diseased betraying body into little shreds of harmless meat. Maybe all of them, the tall and short and fat and thin and fair and dark and young and old weren't enough for you, and so now you punish me by getting into everybody that there is eeverywhere in the world and i wish so much i could take all the anger and frustration and jealousy and jam it like a blade into your stupidfucking heart but I cant because now you’re the stupidsucking wind and how could you do this to me howhowhowhowHOWHOWHOWHOWHOWL?!?!?!**_

Sorry. I'm in a mood tonight. Today. Whatever. 

I have a moodie attitudie, as my mother used to say. 

It's not my fault though. My head hurts. I get these pressure headaches when it rains, especially when there are low and heavy clouds. They're practically torture. You remember, don't you. You vindictive motherfucker? 

I have one more secret. Sometimes I hope they kill me on a pleasant day, when you're nowhere around.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for jouissant for Jukebox 2016.


End file.
